Decouple Your Software and Hardware

The functionality layer shouldn't depend on whose hardware you happen to be using

ScopeCo's add-on software packages only run on their own scopes, and from what we've heard, they're often given away, because their real purpose (for ScopeCo) is to get you to buy the hardware. Hardware is where their expertise lies, not in the functionality layer where M1 exists. Their software strategy is to provide "just enough" functionality to get you to buy their hardware.

No one has instruments from only one manufacturer in their labs

With ScopeCo's philosophy, this leads to

Collection of different user interfaces that everyone needs to learn

Different algorithms being used to measure jitter on different platforms

When a platform needs to be replaced, just slide a new one in under M1 and keep going

No more learning a new interface because you decided Manf B was better than Manf A this time

No more feeling forced to buy from Manf A to preserve your investment in software training

No more losing your investment in Manf A's add-on software because it's not transferable

We learned this phrase from the platform companies. They used it in conjunction with other phrases like "customer sensitivity to minimum viable functionality". At ASA, we call this design philosophy "half screwed together". It's never acceptable at ASA to solve only part of the problem or try to guess what the customer won't notice before they buy it.

By this, we mean that the scope or digitizer has the bandwidth, sample rate, and memory depth that is needed for the desired measurement.